The Lies You Tell

The title of this group comes from Cicely Boga’s BAA! The lies you tell, showing a wolf in a suit and a sheep’s head, enticing parents to go for cochlear implants and other mechanical interventions, rather than learn sign language. Tony Landon McGregor in his Deaf Worldview: Cochlear Implant is No Dental Implant tries to tell us that the cochlear implant is a device that primarily benefits the medical industrial complex. In his The Plight of Mudheads, Tony laments the state of Deaf education left by the policies of Alexander Graham Bell, who is portrayed in Paul Searce’s Come Play Chess With Me.

In Susan Dupor’s Surrender, the fish-head on the deaf baby indicates its victimization by audism, ableism, and eugenics. Cicely Boga’s Indoctrinated emphasizes the damaging effects of removing a Deaf child’s right to an accessible visual language.  Both works reminder us of the consequences of placing deaf babies’ fates in the malevolent hands of audists.